Jeff Mitchell / The Salinas Californian

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Under the Dome

Dome HQ has been informed that on Tuesday a rather ugly meeting was held by City Council members Kimbley Craig, Tony Barrera and Steve McShane.

Joining these three were Library and Community Services Director Elizabeth Martinez and her boss, City Manager Ray Corpuz Jr.

The meeting, ostensibly, was being held to discuss the fundraising efforts of Martinez to pay for the restoration of world famous sculptor Claes Oldenburg’s “Hat in Three Stages of Landing” installation at Sherwood Park.

Last year Martinez said she would make every effort to raise the estimated $150,000 the city paid out to restore the famous public artwork.

Since that time, Martinez, a nationally known figure in the library world and the woman who pieced together the better part of $4 million for the spectacularly remodeled and expanded Cesar Chavez Library on Williams Road, has said the fundraising for “Hat” has gone slower than she anticipated. To my mind she has made a good faith effort to raise the funds and, moreover, she hasn't yet given up.

But apparently that isn’t good enough for Craig, Barrera and McShane — all three of whom are running for reelection and are wanting desperately to play their “fiscal accountability” cards with the voters.

Interestingly, these three don’t seem to get so upset when it comes to spending city money to attend out-of-state conferences. Nor have they apparently considered the sharp increase in the worth of the sculpture itself post renovation.

But like with most politicians, God love ‘em, we shouldn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story, should we?

As I mentioned in a column a couple of weeks ago, this meeting was a fundamentally bad idea. No, I mean it was a really bad idea.

And the fallout from the meeting could prove far worse in the weeks ahead.

Here’s what we understand went down:

We understand that direct political threats against Martinez’s efforts to renovate the El Gabilan Library on North Main Street — the city library next in line to be made over — were made.

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We also understand that one of the council members actually told Martinez she could raise “billions and billions” for the city and that she still needed to soon leave the city’s employment.

Put together what they conveyed was a toxic — perhaps inadvertent — brew of sexism, ageism and maybe even a little veiled racism, too. You can probably also sprinkle some federal civil rights issues in there as well.

Can you say massive lawsuit?

So here’s the thing: Martinez is a nationally recognized librarian.

She’s a near-retirement age woman and a Latina at that.

Martinez also happens to be the city’s only female department director.

Are we all getting the picture now?

The meeting was also an unwarranted and ugly display of power.

The whole affair kind of reminds me of a “Star Chamber” — those 15th century secret courts used by the British monarchy to try and convict high-profile “problem” people. Such courts not only were held in secret but there were no indictments and there were no witnesses.

Unlike a true star chamber of old, Martinez knew well her accusers.

She sat across the conference table from three council members — one member short of a quorum and a voting majority.

What these three have apparently forgotten is that we have manager-council form of government in Salinas. That means the elected members of the council get to create and shape public policy. The city manager — the guy or gal they hire — gets to implement that policy.

That also means that the manager — not three errant council members — gets to deal with issues related to any of the city’s employees under him.

The only so-called “direct reports” the council gets to manage is the manager and the city attorney.

So it’s for that reason that I’m wondering why Corpuz Jr. just didn’t stop the meeting in its tracks? Clearly he should have.

If these three council members had an issue with Martinez, they should have come to Corpuz and let him deal with it. Anything else is meddling. Anything else is really out of bounds.

Moreover, it turns out that other members of the council were unaware that this meeting was being held — including Mayor Joe Gunter and Councilwoman Jyl Lutes.

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By the way, Gunter and Lutes both said this week that they completely support and appreciate Martinez.

“Elizabeth has done a remarkable job for the city. She has my full and complete support,” Gunter said. “I am not concerned about her fundraising efforts in the least.”

So Dome HQ reached out individually on Friday to Craig, Barrera and McShane so they could share their take on the meeting with you. None of them responded before deadline.

But knowing Martinez, my guess — my hope, for the city’s sake — is that she’ll take the high road on this and not sue the city for this wild mistreatment.

But should she choose to sue, could anyone really blame her? No city employee should ever have to go through what she did.

Jeff Mitchell covers Salinas Valley politics and government. Under the Dome, an opinion column, appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in print and online. Email him at jemitchell@thecalifornian.com. For quick political hits, check out Under the Dome – The Blog, available most every day at: www.theCalifornian.com.